February 2013 – Madeira Music Competition Tour
Madeira Music Competition Tour
February 8th-13th, Escola Das Artes, Funchal
Four students spent half term at the International Forum of Musical Performance and Pedagogy in Funchal, Madeira, along with teachers Emmanuelle Dumas, Chris George and Young-Pyo Lee. The tour was supported by the Jersey Arts Trust, and involved an intensive mixture of performing, practising, attending concerts and observing fellow young musicians.
The competition is a bi-annual event, and this year attracted one hundred and five students from Russia, Ukraine, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Poland, Kazakhstan, China, Portugal and the UK. The age range of the students went from eight years of age through to thirty years of age, and incorporated a mixture of piano, strings, wind, brass, ensembles and vocal entries. The Jersey students had the opportunity to compete in various age groups, and were delighted to return home with two ‘Second Category’ awards, one ‘Third Category’ award, and one ‘Honorary Diploma’ award.
Alongside performing in the competition, the intensive four-day schedule saw the students performing in an evening recital alongside singers from different countries, observing over ten hours of performances from fellow young musicians, attending two recitals (one of which was given by violinist Anatoly Melnikov, one of the great figures of the violin world) and around six hours of dedicated individual practice time was allocated to each student in the practice rooms of the Escola Das Artes, Madeira’s music conservatoire.
Whilst in Madeira, the Jersey group also had the opportunity to see some of the island in glorious sunshine and even had the opportunity to take part in the traditional Madeiran ‘Fado’ singing in one of the unique family-run Fado venues in Funchal’s ‘Old Town’, and attend the yearly ‘Carnival’ event.
The tour has continued to strengthen the academy’s link with the Escola Das Artes, and is the sixth event to take place over the past five years. The ‘Unissono’ violin group from the Escola Das Artes, led by their teacher Vladimir Proudnikov, has been invited back to Jersey later this year to continue the friendship.